News

Can you believe it? Now Berkeley Measure T, special planning for several large landholdings in West Berkeley, is totally tied, with Yes and No each getting almost exactly 50% of the vote. More votes still outstanding, of course. At the Alameda County Registrar of Voters' office, Phillip (he didn't want to give his last name) said that they hope to be finished counting, including thousands of provisional ballots "before Thanksgiving". Jeff, another worker there, said that they need to enter all the vote by mail ballots first, and then check the provisional ballots to make sure the voter hadn't already voted by mail. He thinks there will be another update tomorrow.
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Although many vote-by-mail and provisional ballots have yet to be counted, Bay Area counties are projecting strong voter turnout for Tuesday's presidential election, however numbers are expected to be below those from the 2008 race.
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The fate of a ballot measure that would allow more flexibility in the development of large parcels of land in West Berkeley remained up in the air in updated election results released late this afternoon.

Measure T, which would amend the West Berkeley Plan and the city's zoning ordinance for areas west of San Pablo Avenue, is trailing by only 26 votes, or 50.04 percent to 49.96 percent.

The gap in the results posted by the Alameda County Registrar of Voters shortly after 4 p.m. is smaller than the 123-vote margin in the results announced shortly after midnight.

It will take several more days to count additional vote-by-mail and provisional ballots, voting officials said.

Countywide, about 85,000 vote-by-mail ballots and 40,000 provisional ballots still need to be tabulated. Voting officials don't have a breakdown of how many of those are from Berkeley.
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It appears that many votes in Berkeley have yet to be counted. A quick comparison with 2008 election results shows that either there was an extraordinary drop in turnout in Berkeley or as many as 25,000 votes have yet to be counted.

For instance, the final results from 2008 show at total of 56,270 votes cast for mayor. So far the results from Berkeley show only 32,661 votes cast for mayor.

Votes remaining to be counted would include absentee ballots dropped at the polls and provisional votes cast at the polls. It probably also includes some other absentee ballots, perhaps those that arrived at the county closer to the election.
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Final results posted at the office of the Alameda County Registrar of Voters seem to show Measure T, which attempted to re-zone several large property holdings in West Berkeley, losing by a narrow margin.
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Based on totals supplied by the Alameda County Clerk's office early this morning, Berkeley voters, by more than a thousand votes, rejected an attempt to make sitting down on the city's commercial sidewalks illegal. The measure was backed by more than $110,000, largely supplied by big commercial property interests. The "No on S" campaign was carried by citizen volunteers on a much lower budget of contributions from private individuals.
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Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates garnered a majority vote to secure his long-held position for another term, and all the other incumbents on the city ballot were also re-elected. Three of the tenant-backed slate candidates appear to have won seats on the Berkeley Rent Board.
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Berkeley's Jackie DeBose, temporarily living in Akron, Ohio, has been working hard for Obama there for the past few months. She reports that in her area there have been long lines in the predominantly African-American precincts all week--so local Democrats are sure they've carried the state. It's been a hard struggle, with extensive voter suppression efforts by the Republican-dominated state government. Early voting has been proceeding under court order, but Jackie says that opening and closing hours have changed every day, making it hard for voters to know when they could vote. Nevertheless, when I talked to her at 6 o'clock, she and her husband, CSU Emeritus Professor Charles DeBose, were on their way out the door to a couple of victory parties. And Ohio is the key swing state that Obama needs to win nationally.

Alejandro Soto-Vigil, a candidate for the Berkeley Rent Board and aide to Councilmember Kriss Worthington, charged last night that an aide to Councilmember Laurie Capitelli violated state law by entering his private property without permission while Capitelli waited at the site in a car.
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In Berkeley Standing Up For Your Right to Sit Down may be a crime, and it becomes a crime if a cop says it is.

In this case, the police incident was just the latest in a series of continuing crackdowns, since a two-man telegraph foot/bike patrol set out to "set parameters, and establish protocols." Most street kids understand: they cooperate.

Carol Denney is no street kid. She went to the streets Sunday, as one last protest against Measure S, which would ban sitting (even on chairs) on sidewalks in commercial districts She got a ticket (BMC ch.14.48.020, obstructing foot traffic) for sitting on Teley.

You could say Denney, of “Failure to Disperse," an acoustic road show band, the event organizer, sat down for her right to sit down at Telegraph and Haste performing music
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If you come across anyone (in California) who doesn't know where to vote, the Yes on Prop 30 Campaign has made it easy.. Click the web address below, write in the address where the person lives, and then click right below.

Blackfeet Indian elder Zachary Running Wolf Brown, 49, a notorious Berkeley/Oakland protester with more than ninety scalps on his arrest belt, was busted last week for stickering a city-owned garbage can.
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In his campaign speeches, GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney has made it carbon-clear: if you live on his planet, you're going to be consuming "good, old-fashioned American power"—the kind produced by coal, oil and uranium. "You can't drive a car with a windmill on it," Romney scoffs.
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Are you confused about the upcoming election? Below you'll be able to find all the articles about the November 2012 election that have appeared to date in the Planet, with editorial endorsements at the top of the stack.
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